‘Varieties of institutional avoidance’: employers' strategies in low-waged service sector occupations in France and Germany

Abstract

The article analyses patterns of atypical work and their dynamics of change in three service sectors (retailing, hotels and hospitals) in Germany and France. This sectoral approach reveals that the growth of atypical employment is not just a result of new exit options that allow employers to bypass national employment standards. To a significant extent, it is also the delayed effect of latent structures, in particular the weakness of industrial relations as well as pre-existing legal exit options and gaps in the regulation of working conditions. With increasing price competition, these latent structures have come more strongly to the fore as employers make use of their significant ability to unilaterally withdraw from an existing framework. In these service sectors, the process of dualization cannot be analysed as a mere consequence of deregulation policies nor as a result of the weakening of the generalization effect emanating from manufacturing industry.

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